Episode 12: “The Bitter Aftertaste of Victory”

Written by Swordtail

Published November 22, 2005

Adventures with Binky the Mistreated Targ

This week we find our protagonist moving through a subspace flexure at approximately 68 miles per hour. He emerges from the portal and lands in the middle of a big field of petunias, surrounded by twenty of the meanest-looking Nausicaans you’ve ever seen. One of the Nausicaans turns to another and says:

Nausicaan #1 - Anyone up for roast pork?

Binky, having the misfortune of being injected with a faulty universal translator during his time with the Borg, thinks the Nausicaan was saying something about leather boots and decides to let his guard down. The Nausicaans decide to beat Binky to a bloody pulp with lead pipes. Semi-fortunately for Binky, he is swallowed by a temporal portal just as he is about to kick the bucket. In his place appears Captain Righteous Lee, who the Nausicaans also decided to eat...

Righteous - GAHHH!! NO!!!!!!! NOT A FIELD OF PETUNIAS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! ...Oh, it was just a dream...

He lies back down and is almost asleep when his commbadge goes off.

Baque - Captain, wake up! The ship is entering a field of petunias! MAN-EATING PETUNIAS!

Righteous jumps up screaming and hits his head off the top of the window frame, knocking himself out.

Camera goes to the bridge, where a scowling Ensign Center looks on as Lieutenant Baque and Lieutenant-Commander Genocide are rolling on the floor laughing.

Center - When he comes to he’s going to be very mad. He’ll probably demote you and promote me... I hope.

Baque - Hey, it was his suggestion to put an open commlink in his quarters. We’re just taking advantage of the otherwise boring situation.

Genocide - Reading Adventures with Binky the Mistreated Targ to him was a brilliant idea. Let’s try Dawn of the Dead next time.

Center - It’s not a good idea to screw with the Captain. You’re on duty, you know.

Baque - It’s not like we’re doing anything right now...

Camera zooms outside the ship and pans around a large armada of damaged Federation and Klingon starships. Some have pieces of Breen ships stuck in their hulls, others are being towed, and some are just careening through space with no power whatsoever, but no one’s noticed yet. Camera goes to the USS Litterbox, which is still wrapped in duct tape but with a little less of a bend to it. On the Litterbox’s bridge.

Admiral Spot - How much longer till we reach Starbase 358 at our current speed?

No-Name #1 - 1,345,243 years, 4 months, 18 days, and 9 hours. Give or take a second or two.

Admiral Spot - Damn it! Go to warp!

Captain Spot Jr. - But mom, what about the ships that can’t go to warp yet?

Admiral Spot - Well, extend the warp bubble around them then. I’m not missing out on that meeting with the President because the ships can’t go faster than the speed of light!

Baque - Three Vulcans walk into a bar and order some bloodwine. The bartender gives them a funny look at first but then proceeds with the order. While he is rummaging around looking for some bloodwine, the Vulcans–

Beep!

Captain Spot Jr. - USS Litterbox to all ships. Prepare to go to warp.

Baque - Damn it!

Genocide - F***ers!

Center - Yay!

Genocide whips out a phaser and fires at Ensign Center, but a no-name walks in between the tactical and ops stations at the last moment and is vaporized.

Genocide - Odd, the phaser was on heavy stun, not full power.

Baque - Yeah well, you know how no-names are. One minute they’re there, the next they’re not. Preparing to go to warp.

Genocide - Hmmm... I should probably do something about that stain...

He presses a button and a little robot comes out with a mop and bucket and starts scrubbing the carpet where the no-name once stood.

Baque - Well, time for the credits.

Opening credits. And then some commercials that tell you how hard it is to live without a certain product that no one needs or wants anyway. Oh yeah, the them song is “Session.”

Scene 2 - Starbase Who Gives a Damn. Admiral Spot, Captain Righteous, and Captain Farfetched are sitting around a table.

Spot - Now as I was saying before we were rudely interrupted by that Starbase Name Changing Ceremony, the Ninth Fleet is off the front lines to be repaired and retrofitted. If the Orion Syndicate has a Borg cutting beam, chances are it will only be a matter of time before they sell it to the Breen.

Farfetched - Those jackasses!

Spot - Yes, indeed. Anyway, there’s a conference on Riata III about subspace communicators that I expect all captains in the Ninth Fleet to attend.

Righteous - Can I be demoted?

Spot - I’d love to, but Commander Senseless is this close to having a nervous breakdown as it is and the last thing he needs is the extra stress of being in charge of the Celestial.

Farfetched - I’m assuming we’re taking the USS Litterbox?

Spot - No, we still need to fix it. There are 347 ships in the Ninth Fleet, give or take one or two, but seeing as we’ve never named any of them or their captains, I’m just going to take you two and your EXO’s with me in a shuttle to the conference.

Righteous - Which shuttle?

Spot - It doesn’t matter.

Righteous - Yes, it does. The Prophets say we can only travel in certain craft, so you see it does matter a lot.

Farfetched - How come you’re commanding the Ninth Fleet? I thought you were placed in charge of Starfleet Command?

Spot - I was and am. However, Admiral Nelix is completely incompetent and untrustworthy so I’ve decided to take a more active role in your affairs.

Farfetched - I wouldn’t call him untrustworthy...

Spot - If you’re referring to him blackmailing you with that photo of you slipping on a banana peel and slamming your face into a bowl of potato leak soup, we know about that.

Farfetched - Son of a bitch!

Righteous - Don’t fret too much about it. That kind of thing happens to me all the time.

Farfetched - Gee, thanks... that makes me feel a whole lot better.

Righteous - I know! Isn’t it great to get these things out in the open?

Spot - Lee?

Righteous - Yes, ma’am?

Spot - Shut up.

Righteous - Okay, ma’am.

Righteous closes his mouth, sits back in his chair, and starts humming the Voyager theme song.

Spot - ...Yeah... whatever. Now, we leave at 0800 and don’t be late.

Righteous - Can’t we leave at 1100? I like to sleep in on Saturdays.

Spot - Tomorrow is Wednesday.

Righteous - Yes, but I’ll probably be working on Saturday so I need to get all the sleep I can during the week.

Spot - Grrr... I don’t care! We’ll probably end up having to perform a site to site transport on you anyway.

Scene 3 - Sure enough, they’ve had to beam Righteous to the Captain’s Yacht, not because he neglected to get up, but because he got lost on the way there. Spot, Righteous, Farfetched, Commander Shelby, Senseless, and a no-name sit at stations on the small bridge. They’ve put Righteous at the Communications Station so he can’t hurt anyone.

Baque - Okay, well here’s one you’ll like: Three Vulcans walk into a bar and order some bloodwine. The bartender gives them a odd look but proceeds with the order. While he is looking for some bottles of bloodwine, the Vulcan’s all of the sudden get up and –

Before the others can stop him from saying it, a couple Romulan thugs walk in and lower the forcefield.

Romulan Guard #1 - Yo, yo wassup!

Righteous - Where’s our helmsman?

Romulan Guard #2 - He was gettin a little mouthy so we a popped a cap in his punk ass.

Shelby - You guys aren’t good at this are you?

Romulan Guard #1 - No, not really.

He points to Captain Righteous.

Romulan Guard #1 - You. Come with us.

Righteous hops out of the room and follows the guards as they walk away. The camera watches them as they walk away.

Righteous - So... what’s your religion?...

Farfetched - Well, this is not good.

Spot - I’ll say. We need to escape and warn Starfleet that we might have a Romulan problem now.

Farfetched - I was referring to our chances of being killed as soon as Righteous opens his stupid mouth.

Camera goes to watch Righteous as the guards escort him down the corridor.

Righteous - Do you like biscuits? I like biscuits, what do you think? I’ve always thought people who had a taste for biscuits were the most enlightened. Could be just a coincidence but maybe, just maybe, the biscuits are the food of the Prophets. Think they used to eat biscuits? Hello? I’m still being heard here right?

The guards roll their eyes and turn and open a door. They enter the laboratory where three Romulan scientists are working.

Scene 8 - The camera is on the Celestial, which is missing some hull plates and is set down on an asteroid in the middle of a nebula.

Senseless - Captain’s log, stardate 435373.5. The Breen attack has disabled our warp drive and we’ve been forced to hole up in this nebula while we make repairs. The Litterbox and the Saratoga are off to Starfleet Headquarters to get more ships. We’re not sure why, but the only other ship that survived was the USS Pootytang, which Lieutenant-Commander Genocide named only seconds before it was about to be rammed. The naming gave it near immortality, or so we thought. We last saw it with its crew joyriding around the system. End log.

Blavik - Partly because in your language my old name meant something completely different and half the crew was constantly looking for handouts.

Puker - I wish you would have told me beforehand. I nearly freaked yesterday. Tonnes of work to do and the computer said you no longer were aboard the ship.

Greaser - Well, we should have warp drive back in a day or two.

Genocide - Weapons are another story. We’re out of torpedoes and they’re about the only things that make a dent in those new Breen hulls.

Bios - I’ve scanned for ways to get by them undetected, but so far I’ve come up with nothing.

Baque - Now, about the apparent cloning of our dear old commander here...

Puker - Ah yes. I took a blood sample of Jack and compared it to the DNA of him we have on record. Commander, you’re the real thing. No doubt about it. Even your quantum signature matches.

Senseless - Thank you, Vaughn. So that means that the other Commander Senseless is an impostor. Ensign Center, do we have any way of warning the Admiral?

Center - I’ve tried everything I can think of–

Baque - --In other words next to nothing–

Center - --But I haven’t been able to reach them.

Bios - Odd... A signal should be able to reach Riata III from pretty much anywhere in the sector. They have one of the largest communications hubs anywhere in the Federation.

Tener - We’ll have to assume that something bad happened to them.

Genocide - When does something not bad ever happen to anyone around here?

Blavik - Do we have sensor records from the launch of the yacht? Perhaps they contain some clue as to who is impersonating the Commander.

Senseless - You and Lieutenant Bios can take a look into it. In the meantime, Tener, I want round-the-clock drills. You too Genocide. Greaser, “a year or so” isn’t an option. I want to be out of this nebula in 12 hours. Baque, start working on a plan to get us past those Breen ships. Ensign, give him a hand. That’s everything people. Dismissed!

Scientist - Not good. We’ve been at this for 7 hours and we still don’t have anything. The computer reads blank! I can’t understand it! We’ve tried everything we can think of! Torture, threat of death, being forced to watch Martha Stewart’s new reality TV show... Nothing!

Spliff - Perhaps one of the others...?

Scientist - In order to have the mental blocks this Captain Righteous has, Starfleet must have spent a lot of time and energy to install them. Whatever he knows, it is very, very important. I don’t suggest we waste our deuterium powering the Romulan Mind Reader Thingy Device for use on any of the others.

Spliff - Very well. However, the Tal Shiar wants us back to Romulus in 10 hours so we’ll need to shut everything down and go to warp in eight.

Scientist - Understood.

He leaves the room. The Commander looks around and sees that no one else is inside. He opens a hatch on his chair, takes out a PSP, and starts playing Elite Force II.

Scene 10 - Main Engineering, USS Celestial. Greaser is talking with some No-Names.

No-Name #5 - Ma’am, I’m telling you it’s completely impossible!

Greaser - No, it’s not! Look, if Lieutenant Torres can totally repair Voyager in a matter of hours like she did in “Deadlock,” we can fix this bucket of self-sealing stembolts fairly soon!

No-Name #5 - Ma’am! It can’t be done in 9 hours! I’ve been working on ships like these for years and I know when a warp matrix is fried! It’ll take a month! At drydock!

Greaser - I don’t give a rat’s ass how long drydock takes to fix things, I’m telling you to fix this warp core in the next 9 hours or I’ll be forced to rip off your head and shove if up your ass so that when you take a sh*t, you’ll sh*t all over your face!

Greaser grabs the No-Name’s head in both hands and twists, breaking his neck.

Greaser - Anyone else have a problem with our timetable?

All the other yellowshirts raise their hands in surrender and go back to work.

Several minutes later, in the mess hall, Greaser is drinking something bubbly. Tener and Baque come in and sit down.

Tener - Stupid security force can’t even stop a tribble from getting into a bowl of honey and back out again!

Greaser - Doesn’t sound like the drills were going so well.

Baque - Neither is the repairs, as I hear it.

Greaser - The core matrix is fried. We don’t have warp drive and my incompetent staff can’t seem to get it through their heads that if we don’t fix it, we’re facing a lot of death on our hands.

Baque - I don’t see how we can get through the Breen armada surrounding this system without warp drive.

Tener - ...Wait, maybe we don’t have to...

Greaser - If you have an idea, I’m all ears.

Tener - Oh, no I was just thinking how cool it would be if we didn’t have to go through that blockade.

Baque - Actually... you might be right... We might not have to. Who knows anything about quantum slipstream?

Greaser - Oh no, not that again! I still have nightmares from that Academy exam.

Tener - What’s quantum slipstream?

Baque - It’s a form of travel, faster even than transwarp. Somewhere up there with the warp 9 triple 9 speeds. Anyway it’s different from conventional warp because you don’t really need a warp field and it doesn’t warp space, it sends a ship right through it.

Tener - Wait, I think I heard something about that... Isn’t it highly unsafe? I thought Voyager couldn’t use it for more than a few minutes or so or their structural integrity would fail?

Baque - But we wouldn’t have to use it for long! Just enough to get us past that blockade!

Greaser - And then what? The Breen will find us and we still won’t have warp travel.

Baque - Why not use the slipstream to do quick hops, fix structural integrity, and hop again. If Voyager had done that they would have gotten home in a month... stupid bastards...

Greaser - Just one problem: We don’t have a slipstream core.

Baque - True... But I don’t think we need one for a quick jump. Voyager certainly didn’t when they first discovered it.

Greaser - Fine, I’ll get on it... eventually.

Tener - Yeah. Let’s just stay here for a while and sip coffee.

Boom, ship rocks, sparks.

Tener - Who didn’t see that coming a mile away?

Senseless - All hands to battle stations!

Greaser - Okay universe, I get the idea. I’ll get that stupid slipstream thingy working. Sheesh...

Scene 11 - Bridge. The ship is shaking as Baque, Genocide, and Bios take their stations.

Senseless - Where is the ship that’s firing at us?

Center - Everywhere! They’re all bearing down on us.

Baque - Lieutenant Baque to Engineering. How’s it coming with those modifications?

Greaser - Almost there! Stop rushing me!

Bios - What modifications?

Boom, ship rocks, sparks.

Baque - Quantum slipstream. We think it might get us past the Breen blockade.

Bios - BAD IDEA!

Senseless - Doesn’t sound like we have a choice at the moment. Engage when ready. Set a course for the captain’s last known location.

Greaser - Engineering to bridge. We’re as ready as we’re ever going to be. Give it a shot.

Baque - Plotting course.

Bios - ...Bringing main deflector online.

Genocide - Breen ship entering the nebula. Intercept in 10 seconds.

Baque - Slipstream in 4... 3... 2... 1...

Clunk! The crew are all pushed back into their seats as the ship jumps to slipstream... followed by the Breen ship.

Senseless - What the hell?

Boom, ship rocks, sparks.

Genocide - Returning fire.

Baque - It must have entered the stream with us.

Boom, ship rocks, ...ah you get the idea.

Genocide - I can’t get a lock but this thing is knocking out our shields!

Senseless - Drop out of slipstream.

Bios - Reversing deflector polarity!

Clunk! The ship drops out of slipstream.

Baque - Where is the Breen ship?

Center - They’re still in the slipstream.

Genocide - He he he... suckers... I bet they don’t even know how to drop out of slipstream. They’ll probably end up in the worst part of the galaxy...

Some hours later, the Breen ship finally manages to shut down the slipstream. They come to a halt and find themselves in the Clevari system. Onboard...

Scene 12 - Romulan Guard #1 enters the detention area and turns to the cell holding our heroes. They are all sitting on the floor playing cards.

Guard #1 - Where in Romulus’s name did you get those cards?

Spot - We smuggled them in.

Shelby - We also smuggled in this!

She pulls out a type 1 phaser and shoots at Romulan Guard #1. The beam, thanks to some neat technobabble which I won’t mention here, goes right through the forcefield and stuns Romulan Guard #1. Shelby resets the phaser and blows the emitters to pieces. The forcefield lowers and they all run out. Fake Senseless picks up the Guard’s weapon.

Spot - Okay, first we have to find the captain, and then–

Fake Senseless - Actually, you’re not going to go anywhere.

They turn around and see Fake Senseless pointing the Romulan disruptor at Shelby.

Farfetched - You jackass! What are you doing!?!

Fake Senseless - I took the liberty of using your trip to Riata III to go through with my plan. You see, I’m really a terrorist who has nothing better to do and hope to get into heaven by blowing myself and millions of others up with an antimatter bomb. Us getting caught proved to be not what I had hoped for, but now that we’re free I intend to take my proposition to the Commander of this vessel and he is most likely to help me. Now, I want you all to get into that cell over there–

Romulan Guard #2 rounds a corner and sees Fake Senseless holding a disruptor. He instinctively fires at him and the Fake Senseless vaporises. Shelby thinks quick and stuns Guard #2.

Farfetched - Well, that turned out pretty good.

Spot - Not really. Now the FBI will probably cancel the series saying it promotes terrorism.

Shelby - But it just showed that crime doesn’t pay!

Spot - Yeah, well, best not to fret over things like this anyway. Quick! To the laboratory!

Scene 13 - Romulan laboratory. Righteous is still in the chair and is humming the Star Wars theme song. The computer monitor still reads blank.

Romulan Scientist - I just don’t understand it! How can someone who appears to be a complete idiot have so many mental blocks!?!

Righteous - Yay!

Scientist #2 - Wait! I’m getting something!

Slowly, but surely, an odd looking apple appears on the screen.

Righteous - I like apples!

Scientist - It’s working! Finally—

Just as he finishes saying it, the door opens and Shelby and Farfetched burst in and start shooting everything that moves.

Righteous - I like apples!

Farfetched - Come on, let’s get out of here!

Admiral Spot hits some buttons on one of the consoles.

Spot - The yacht is in landing bay 1. Looks like they took the liberty of repairing it for us.

Righteous - That was nice of them. I wonder why they did it though...

Farfetched - Convenient plot device...

Righteous - What?

Farfetched - Oh, nothing. Let’s go before security arrives.

Righteous - Where’s Senseless?

Shelby - Long story. We’ll tell you on the way.

They unhook Righteous and run off down the hall. Camera stays looking out through the laboratory doors. Three seconds later the four officers are seen running by again, going the other way.

Spot - Right, this way.

Scene 14 - Romulan bridge. Commander Spliff is still playing with his PSP as another Romulan runs in.

Romulan Guard #3 - SIR!

Spliff - GAH!

He fumbles his PSP and throws it across the room. It lands with a thud and proceeds to turn into a penguin, which waddles away.

Guard #3 - The prisoners have escaped! Two of our guards were found unconscious!

Spliff - Why didn’t the internal sensors report this sooner?!

Guard #3 - BECAUSE YOU TOUCH–

BOOM! Ship rocks, sparks!

No-Name Romulan #1 - Sir! A Federation starship is attacking us! It came out of nowhere!